Awesome April

April was pretty awesome for our family.



Weather⛈

Well to start off the month, the weather stations were announcing severe thunderstorms one day, which would most likely bring tornadoes.  Now I've been through lots of weather announcements like this (after all, we did live in Iowa for 6 years), so these weather warnings don't really phase me.  But this one had me a little more worried than normal though because #1 the district cancelled school for all children, and #2 the University even cancelled school/work.

I thought cancelling school and work was a bit much, but then I remembered that there was a large and violent EF4 multiple-vortex tornado that devastated portions of Tuscaloosa in 2011. People here are still (and rightfully so) a little traumatized by it, so the city just shut down.

When I woke up the day of the storm, I checked my phone and saw TWO warnings that came with the weather app.  Usually, there is just one warning.  But when you get two, it rattles your nerves a little bit.

Birthday

So it was my birthday this month!  YAY!  Honestly, this was an awesome birthday.  The weather was gorgeous! 🌈  Work was great!  Dinner was great!  Everything about it was great.

And I was showered with gifts that were perfect and thoughtful!  I'll talk about one of my gifts later.

Hannah had been wanting to get me flowers (like for 2 months).  She had been trying to keep it a secret, but she was really obvious about it each time we walked by the flowers at Sam's club.  Ah, the innocence of being a child.

In fact, the day after my birthday, we had a Young Women activity, the girls brought me a few bouquet of flowers and gave me some cards.  It was so sweet.  One of the girls gave me some Stargazer Lilies, and they were gorgeous and fragrant.  And of course, as I'm writing this, I noticed I didn't take any pictures of them.😞

And at the end of the night, I got a text message from the girls I used to do Zumba with back in PA.  I miss doing Zumba with them.  It was so much fun.

Easter🐣

Hannah woke up to this:

She came running in our room Sunday morning and said "Mommy!  Daddy!  Did you guys put those things on the couch?"  A few seconds later, she said "Oh, wait.  It was the Easter bunny!"

After checking out her loot for a few minutes, she then realized there were Easter Eggs scattered throughout the place and got right to business in collecting them.

Oh wait -- do you see those Lilies up there on the right side of the credenza? 👆  I did get a shot of them.  Aren't they gorgeous?



Organizing📦

One of my birthday gifts came in the mail: some fridge containers from The Container Store.

As I was opening my package, Hannah asked "what did you get Mommy?  What did you get?" I said "Mommy got some toys for her birthday."  When I pulled everything out of the box Hannah said "those aren't toys Mommy."

Here's the before:

Here's the after (and I'm not done yet.  I'm still needing a few more organizing containers):

Thanks Mom for the gift card.  I've been wanting to organize my fridge.



Young Women👭

We did a fundraiser for girls camp: we did "A-day game parking."

In the spring, Alabama football has a spring game where they play each other (Alabama offense plays Alabama defense).  It's a big event, and the University needs help with people guiding drivers into parking lots.  So the girls got there at 6:45 am, and we couldn't leave until the game started (which was 2:00 pm).  Thankfully, the weather was great: not too hot, not too cold, no rain (which we were expecting), and a light breeze.  And, we now have money for all the girls to go to camp in July. Mission accomplished!



Play date

While I was doing parking for the A-Day game, Hannah went to a friends house for a play date and thoroughly enjoyed herself.  My friend texted me this message: "THIS IS THE BEST PLAY DATE EVER."

When we got home, she went straight to the tub and took a bath!



Kleptomaniac🙈

Well it finally happened.  The "stealing" phase of childhood has come in our house.

Back in February, Hannah started coming home with some toys every once in a while.  I'd ask her where they came from and she would say "my friend gave it to me," or "Mrs. Snow gave it to me."  I didn't think much of it until a few weeks ago.

One day Hannah came home with a water bottle.  I asked "where did you get that?"  She said her teacher gave it to her.  This time, I knew she was not telling me the truth because the water bottle was used.

Long story short, Nathan and I had a little intervention, and a Family Home Evening lesson on stealing / lying.  She came completely clean, and is now returning the stolen goods.

Hopefully the lesson will stick, and end our little kleptomaniac's life of crime.



Miscellaneous

Big news!  Hannah's 6 year molars have started to erupt (look way back there).  I can't believe she has permanent teeth now.

Towards the end of the month, I was in a Laurel class presidency meeting with my Young Women. We decided to have our meeting in the Mother's lounge so we could sit in the nice and comfy chairs. The girls found the "pillows" interesting (I educated them what Boppy pillows are for).  We goofed around for a few minutes, but then got serious and down to business.

One morning I went to go get Hannah up for school, and I found her like this.  She is a wild (and loud) sleeper.

Hannah got to go to the zoo for a field trip.  She was super excited to go.  And when she got home she was SUPER tired.  She even went to sleep before her bedtime, which is rare because she is kind of a night owl.

Hannah on a play date with Daddy at the mall, and then got some ice-cream.

Hannah's play-Doh egg that she made all by herself!  She was quite proud of it, as are we.

After church one Sunday we came home and crashed.  A few hours later, Hannah came in and snuggled with us after a nice afternoon nap.  Loves these moments.